Over 1,700 Cargill Workers Forced Off the Job After Demanding Bathroom Breaks

America’s largest private company has locked more than 1,700 workers out of their jobs at a Colorado meatpacking plant, and among the demands that triggered the standoff is something most people take for granted: the right to use the bathroom. The dispute at Cargill’s Fort Morgan, Colorado facility has kept employees off the job since May 20, and negotiations have been at a standstill since June 8, with no resolution in sight.

Cargill’s Fort Morgan plant covers 85 acres and normally processes around 4,000 cattle a day, making it the largest employer in a town of roughly 11,900 people. As one of the “Big Four” meatpackers controlling the U.S. market, Cargill produces about one-fifth of the nation’s beef from six primary processing plants. The Fort Morgan facility is among its most productive, and its sudden shutdown has sent shockwaves far beyond the plant gates.

Chris Suazo, a business agent for Teamsters Local 455, which represents the locked-out workers, put the human scale of the crisis plainly. “We’ve got 1,700 union members, and then I look at that as 1,700 families — that’s like 8,000 people that are depending on us to do the best job we can, and set these members up for success in the future,” he said. Those families are now waiting on a company that hasn’t budged from the offer they already voted down by an overwhelming margin.

This article was created with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team for accuracy and clarity.

Workers Rejected a $2.15 Raise Over 5 Years, Then Cargill Shut the Doors

Contract negotiations between Cargill and Teamsters Local 455 broke down after workers voted against the company’s final offer on May 19, which lacked their core demands: higher wages to keep pace with inflation, protections from discipline or replacement by automated technology, and guaranteed bathroom breaks. When the union asked Cargill to return to the table, the company locked workers out the next day instead.

Cargill’s last offer included a pay increase of $2.15 per hour over the next five years, a figure workers found deeply inadequate. Union members were pushing for closer to $4.50 per hour, comparable to what they secured in their previous contract. As union business agent Servando Shawn Payan put it, workers couldn’t even afford to buy the product they spend their days processing at the wages Cargill was proposing.

A second bargaining session took place on May 27, but workers rejected the company’s latest offer by a 90% vote. Cargill halted cattle deliveries to the Fort Morgan plant on April 23, weeks before the formal lockout, citing fears of a potential work stoppage. The union insists workers never voted to strike. The doors closed anyway, and the paychecks stopped.

“Literally We Have People Urinating in Their Pants”

Dean Modecker, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 455, was blunt about what workers endure on the production floor: “Literally we have people urinating in their pants because they are not allowed to go to the bathroom.” Cargill stated it was committed to providing adequate restroom access, but union leaders say the company’s on-the-floor culture tells a different story.

Federal law guarantees all U.S. workers the right to “prompt access” to the bathroom, but Suazo described a “culture of retaliation and intimidation” at the plant that leaves workers afraid to exercise that right. Supervisors reportedly threaten workers with write-ups or termination for leaving their stations. Suazo said three workers had wet themselves under a single supervisor since December. The union arbitrated this issue in 2017 and won, but the behavior continued.

Colorado lawmakers recently passed legislation requiring meatpacking companies to allow workers bathroom access during shifts, a direct response to the same conditions documented at the JBS plant in Greeley, where 3,800 workers staged the first major meatpacking strike in 40 years. That dispute ended with a wage increase and new worker protections. The Cargill workers in Fort Morgan are still waiting to find out if their standoff ends the same way.

A $90 Million AI System, an NLRB Complaint, and a Town Left Holding the Bill

Less than a year before the lockout, Cargill announced a $90 million investment in automation technology at Fort Morgan as part of its “Factory of the Future” initiative, including a camera-based AI system called CarVE that continuously monitors and color-codes each worker’s individual performance in real time. The union demanded the system not be used to discipline members. Cargill refused to commit to that in writing.

On June 5, Teamsters Local 455 filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, accusing Cargill of violating labor law through threats, coercive statements, and unilateral changes to employment conditions. Workers approaching the end of the lockout’s first month reported uncertainty about their health insurance expiring and were advised to file for unemployment, while the union continued paying eligible members $1,250 a week from strike funds.

The town of Fort Morgan has absorbed the economic blow on every level, losing roughly two million gallons of daily water revenue and a third of its summer electricity consumption tied to the plant. Downtown businesses have felt the drop in foot traffic. Cargill employs more than 15 percent of Fort Morgan’s total population, and behind the picket signs carried by immigrant families from Haiti, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa is a sharper question: whether the largest private company in America views its workers as partners, or as a line item to be managed down by algorithm.